You know that Google Newsfeed bar at the top of your gmail that reads your email and tells you links to sites that might interest you? Today, I got the most interesting link and I am really not sure what email Google was reading that generated it.
Here is the link. Apparently on this day 155 years ago John Snow convinced the London authorities to remove the pump handle on a water pump in Soho. For those not in the know, you might say big deal, that doesn't sound too eventful. However, for public health specialists this is comparable to our day of Creation. John Snow proved that the removal of the handle stopped the spread of the cholera epidemic in its tracks and he then went on to map out the entire city and its incidences of cholera- thus he begat Epidemiology.
Snow was the first to promote the idea that cholera (or as our Swiss professor pronounces it Koh-Lair-Ah) was spread by drinking water contaminated with raw sewage. The main theory of the day was that it was dirty air that caused the epidemic. It took some convincing but Snow was able to change minds about cholera and change the way it was controlled. Now only if John Snow was around to work on this pesky swine flu "epidemic."
No comments:
Post a Comment